


my prayers to disappear

by feyluke



Category: The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Rick Grimes, all that matters is writing something, i was never good at actually making my fanfic fit into any sort of canon complying text, idk where this takes place in the canon, rick just really gets the walkers in every way, sometime after they meet abraham and co., the "im gonna kill u for making noise" dead, the "walking" dead, this is so bad but when you're living the writer's block life it doesn't matter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 15:07:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7939198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyluke/pseuds/feyluke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is a non-fic about rick’s sensory overload issues (of which I personally think he has many)</p>
            </blockquote>





	my prayers to disappear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inflomora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inflomora/gifts).



listen - you're always telling the group to just _listen_. stop talking, stop breathing so loudly, stop pounding the ground with your heavy steps and just _listen_ to what your surroundings are telling you. it takes one missed second to be caught off guard by a walker hidden in the crevices of the new world

listen, be quiet, enough - words that mean _nothing_ , apparently. words that travel along the wind and branches, just noise

a branch snaps beneath glenn’s shoe and you close your eyes, everything too bright with that branch snapping around in your brain. the sound waves reverberating in your skull just like they’re bouncing around in a radius around you

maybe the walkers follow the source of sound waves out of revenge, to stop all the noise in the world. you huff in amusement - that’s a sentiment you can relate to

you’d let the moment pass and move on, but there’s abraham’s booming voice, loud even in hushed tones, reprimanding glenn for being so careless. this starts a chain of comments and chatter, and you grit your teeth

it's just teasing, and there’s no rule that people can’t talk when the group is scavenging, but _it’s kind of a rule_

it’s a hot day and there’s sweat rolling down your temple and your shirt is sticking to your back and the air is warm and humid and like a blanket on your exposed skin and _there’s not enough room for all this noise_

you can’t take another second of it and break from the group, going into the woods with a grunt about hunting, daryl stalking beside you with his crossbow poised and ready

if you have to go in partners, you’ll choose daryl every time. he’s quiet, silent

most times it’s like he’s not even there

you’ve never had to tell him to be quiet, like carl, and he doesn’t take offense to the stony silence, like lori did. you move in sync, and catching his movements out of the corner of your eye doesn’t bother you like it used to; doesn’t crawl under your skin like eugene’s movements would (or anyone’s)

it’s new, this kinship; this feeling of _an extension of your own body._ when his shoulders turn to inspect the cracking of a twig 20 feet away, it’s like your own movement. you’re so intrinsically aware of his every movement and every sight as though it were your own. you see through two eyes, feel and hear through two different receptors

_in tune,_ you think. in tune with nature in a base and primal way you never could have been Before. not even with shane, your partner and best friend, was it ever like this. when you and shane were _in tune_ on the job, it was a joke compared to this. a ghost of what a partnership can be

you hate hunting with anyone else. the sun is too bright through the leaves and the earth is too damp and moldy in your nostrils. they all crack and rustle and thump when they move, never a moment’s peace. their breathing, quiet and controlled, is loud and ragged in your ear. everything is a sharp, loud nail to your brain

with daryl, everything is muted enough that the heightened senses can be useful

with each step away from the group, you can feel your breath coming easier and your skull decompressing

with each step, you disappear into his silence

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on [tumblr](http://feyluke.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
